Friday, June 25, 2010

Sizzling Sixteen (Stephanie Plum Series #16)

By Janet Evanovich

Published June 2010 by St. Martin's Press

309 pages

ISBN 9780312383305
From my personal library

Rating - 4 Really liked this one

Read this in approximately 24 hours and really enjoyed it. The last couple of installments in this series seemed to be lacking and increasingly preposterous. With Sizzling Sixteen Ms. Evanovich is back in good form. That's not to say there's no preposterousnous (that can't be a word) here.
Stephanie Plum is up to her neck in crocodiles, of course, except in this case it's an alligator.
Steph has inherited a lucky bottle from her Uncle Pip and spends the rest of the book trying to decide if it's good luck or bad luck. We all know the sorts of situations she gets into so the bottle couldn't possibly be good luck. On the other hand, she always manages to pull it out in the end so maybe that's the good part. Steph really needs some mega-good luck in this one. Her cousin Vinnie, owner of the bail bonds office and her boss, is missing. Vinnie has been kidnapped on account of owing oodles of money to his bookie. Steph attempts to hunt down a couple of regular skips with predictable results but spends most of this book trying to rescue Vinnie and pay his ransom. She enlists the help of Connie, the bail bonds office manager, who is really good with stink bombs, and Lula, file clerk, former 'ho and Steph's right-hand woman, who is really good with doughnuts.
Ranger, mystery stud, and Joe Morelli, unmysterious stud, reprise their roles here as well. Ranger plays a larger role in this novel and is atypically loquacious for him. This is a surprise and there is a bigger surprise in store on this subject. As for Morelli, he does his usual thing, shows up right after one of Steph's escapades to check on her. Can anyone count the number of destroyed vehicles in her wake? I am left wondering how long Ms. Evanovich can keep up the tension between Steph and these two men.
In the end, rescue comes from odd and unexpected places and we find out what's up with that lucky bottle.

BONUS!! Exciting news for Stephanie Plum fans! One For the Money, the first book in the series, is being made into a movie starring Katherine Heigel. Of course, the fun is over for all of you (and this includes me) who were making a game of casting the movie...